


lying in the ocean

by tsukitachinu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Romance, also bi icon doyoung !!!, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-24 00:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19712572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukitachinu/pseuds/tsukitachinu
Summary: Doyoung loved her so much, they planned on spending their lives together, and die together, and meet again in paradise. Except that she got there, and he stayed on earth, becoming immortal and granting people wishes that he couldn't grant himself. Centuries go by and he keep thinking about her, until someone make him feel like maybe she isn't quite dead.





	lying in the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> tw : there's mention of past suicide attempts, and thoughts of wanting to die. ( but in the end nobody does, it's happy don't worry ). 
> 
> also even though the summary mentions a 'she', doyoung is very much bisexual.  
> aaaaand english isn't my first language so there might be a few mistakes i didn't catch, sorry,,,,,

  


> **Everytime I close my eyes,**  
>  **it's like a dark paradise**

Life is ephemeral. It's a fact. A sad, devastating fact, but a fact. Knowing it can be good though, knowing that it will all end eventually allow people to enjoy the moment, to enjoy life and to have a goal. A goal so simple, that most of them forget it : to live. To live is a purpose in itself, which is only able to exist because they know life is ephemeral.

Doyoung wishes he could know that too.

Especially when he has to help other people live, when he has to help them do something he can't really do anymore. Because how could he live when he knows his life isn't going to end ? It will never cease. But everybody's around him will, and he will be left alone, again, and again. One time was enough. More than enough. It had everything that death was : sadness, devastation, coldness, a bittersweet taste in the core of his soul itself.

> **All myfriends tell me I should move on, but I can't.**

Doyoung couldn't stop looking at a pendant while thinking about this. A very old pendant but well taken care of, you could tell someone took good care of it. To Doyoung, that pendant was as precious as his own life, if his life had any value anyway.

The pendant in the palm of his hand, Doyoung kept talking like its holder was in front of him. As if she was still there. He could simply not forget her when they're breaking apart was so impetuous, so abrupt. They were supposed to meet again in death, that was the plan. And that plan worked for every single human being since the beginning of mankind, so why didn't it work for him ? Why didn't it work for them ? What did they do wrong for them not to have the right to reunite ?

His friends believed that he should move on, find another girlfriend, start a new life. He was still young, he had a whole life ahead of him. Ha, ha. A whole life. Funny. He looked at the pendant once more and laughed, until his laughs turned into tears, a cry for help. God he missed her.

His friends believed in what they wanted, but they didn't know the whole story, and they could never understand to what extent their separation was devastating for Doyoung.

Therefor, Doyoung kept thinking about her every second, kept waking up day after day hoping that she would continue keeping him company in his thoughts a little longer.

  


> **I'm lying in the ocean singing your song.**

It was a form of ritual, whenever he missed her a bit too much, Doyoung took his car and hurried to the small beach where they used to go. She wasn’t that small anymore thanks to global warming, but it was still the same beach. And it had the pleasure to have known her.

This place allowed his memory to resurface, and to appease doyong, even if only for a few hours. So whenever he went, he’d lay down on the sand at the water's edge, still fully clothed, letting the waves skimming his face, letting the gentle splash of the water against his face lulling him, while humming the song she sang each time she felt happy.

This song had become a synonym of joy and love, it became a cute way to tell him that at this exact moment she felt happy with him, that the moment they were sharing was special and precious.

  


> **That's how you sang it.**

Doyoung wanted these moments, where he felt closer to her, to be precious as well, therefor he did his utmost, tried to sing it like she would have, like she used to.

His friends were wrong,

> **Loving you forever can't be wrong** , he thought.

And when he woke up, sometimes hours later, heart at ease and head unshadowed, he drove back home.

On that day, he arrived right on time to get breakfast and go to work.

His work wasn’t interesting. At least not anymore, because he had been doing it for so long that the euphoria of the novelty had went by, and he locked himself up in a certain monotony. His work consisted of waiting. Waiting that someone would cross the threshold of his office, desperate for his help.

Doyoung is talented, really very talented and even though he was giving his favors in exchange of money because well, he had to live too, he had to judge the client first, make sure that they deserved a gift. Basically, he had to see if they were desperate enough, if coming to him really was their last resort.

  


The first times he met clients, listened to their stories, their motivations, knew what they expected of him, what they hoped for, see how much their faces calmed down when they took their dreams and decluttered them of a big failure hurting them, or when he proceeded to make them remember something more easily, more vividly, like the smile of their now-deceased daughter, or the last time their father told them he was proud of them, for instance, was something he was longing for, that he was proud of.

While he was doing that, at the beginning, it allowed him not to think about her. Although he was devastated, close to agony, his work granted him some small breath of air.

> **Even though you’re not here, won’t move on.**

His abilities weren’t only to take dreams and give back memories. He could also, and did regularly, give new dreams and take memories away as well. So, yes, indeed, he could have taken his own memories of his girlfriend away, make himself forget that she had ever existed and not longing her anymore. But he’d rather remember her and hurt, than living in a world where she would have never existed. He needed his memories, he needed to remember that she loved him.

It was time to open the shop.

He did it while whistling.

> **That's how we played it.**

Three people were in front of his door. He didn’t know who arrived first so he waited for one of them to step forward. The old lady was the first to get in his office, that had of an office only the name. It was a room fully glazed, with a view on a Japanese style garden. Doyoung thought, years ago, that a nice view might help his patients to be more relaxed, and it wasn’t much of a luxury considering what he was about to do.

A few minutes later, the old lady went back home in company of who seemed to be her son. Her dream to become an astronaut blown away alongside her memories of her husband crashed by junk pieces of a spacecraft. She couldn’t fulfill her dream after this tragedy, but even now, at about eighty years old, she still couldn’t get rid of it, she just couldn’t give up on her dream, and the fact that she never went into a rocket although she had been so close to making it before the loss of her husband, drove her insane.

  


And there's no remedy for memory.

Doyoung had the ironic luck to remember everything, every single thing, every single moment, every single person. ironic, right? Since his work was all about taking other’s memories, but who took his? Often it was a chance. He could remember his lover with a disconcerting precision. It allowed him to remember what he read and have a lot of knowledges in multiples fields.

But there were sometimes, like this day, where it was a curse.

> **Your face is like a melody.**

__ Hello, I... I've been told that you could do miracles and i could really use one right now. I really, really need one._

Doyoung invited the young man to sit and offered him some tea while he listened to him telling his misfortune and why he needed him.

__ You see I'm in a relationship and.. i often think about someone else. Oh my god put like this it sounds awful.. You see ? It's awful, I need to stop thinking about him. Please._

__ Thinking about whom ?_

__ It's odd.. you're going to think I'm mad but.. I've got memories of things i've never experienced. There's this man and I've got memories with him. Walks, conversations, smiles... except that I don't who heis. I've got a vague idea of his face but I never see it entirely. What I do know is that I've never did all those things. So please, please help me, take away those memories._

Doyoung nodded and dive into the mind of this man to see if he was telling the truth, some lied sometimes and wanted him to get away their guilt because they indeed were cheating. But that Jung Jaehyun spoke true, he did had those memories that weren't his. And that, he was convinced of, because he shared those same memories.

__ I can't take care of it for you, sorry, please leave._ Asked Doyoung with a purposely lifeless tone, while standing up to show him the door.

  


> **It won't leave my head**

After Jaehyun's leaving, Doyoung dissolved into tears, hands covering his ears to prevent himself to hear his voice even though he wasn't there anymore. But the thing is, he was always there with him. Or she has always been with him. He didn't know anymore. At some point he thought about it, about her coming back to life and them living together, being happy. All that happily ever after bullshit. Except he never heard of coming back to life, nor about reincarnation and he was the epitome of supernatural so if he didn't know about it, it was probably because it didn't exist. That's the conclusion he came to.

> **Your soul is haunting me**

Except that now she came back to haunt him. It wasn't exactly her anymore, but according to the feeling Doyoung had when Jaehyun came into his office, he couldn't deny the obvious. She had reincarnated as a man. And that man had a life. A life that deserved to be lived without anything holding him back. And there, right now, his memories of Doyoung, of his past life tormented him and didn't allow him to be happy with his boyfriend. It wasn't fair. But Doyoung was no saint. And he would choose someone else's happiness over his. Living eternally with a broken heart was already enough misery.

That night, his dream was more intense than usual. Every night he dreamed of her, but it was only memories mixed with hopes, with his dreams of that time. Here, she appeared to scold him, to ask him to let her go, to let himself live too.

When he woke up, he let the scolding go away from his mind and decided to close his office. He didn't have the headset to allow others to be happy right now. Egoist, sure, but immortality didn't make him less human and he had his flaws.

He went out to change his mind, went to the market, walked in the streets, went into some shops. He ended up buying himself an ice cream and went to the park to eat it before taking a nap in the grass.

That went on for about two weeks. The night he dreamed of her, whether it'd be simple memories, a happy dream, or her scolding him again. And during the day he occupied his mind by doing anything but work.

> **And telling me that everything is fine**

Doyoung was about to nap on the grass when he saw Jaehyun walking hand in hand with another man. He had a lump in his throat. Even though he knew Jaehyun wasn't the woman he was in love with, he had trouble telling them apart. She was now Jaehyun and it couldn't be any other way to him. So seeing her, well seeing him, with someone else made him sad, even if he was prepared. If he came to this park every day, it was because when he saw Jaehyun's memories, he saw him walk his dog there, and he hoped he could notice him from time to time. It was his new way to cope.

An amelioration, of some sort, since he didn't have to content himself with overseen memories, he could now see him for real.

Seeing him thought, seemed to have mentally slapped him because she came to see him during his nap. She never came during daytime, but this time she was there, on her knees in front of him, crying, her face devastated with her tears, so much that she had trouble speaking. However, every word she managed to say was a supplication. She was begging Doyoung to let her go, to let her new life happen. She promised him everything would be fine, that he was allowed to forget about her too, that she wouldn't resent him, in contrary. Everything she hoped for Doyoung was for him to forget her and create a new life for himself, was for him to find someone else, for him to be happy again without living in the past.

She begged him one last time, to let Jaehyun and herself live in the present without worrying about the past, without worrying about her.

> **But I wish I was dead  
>  **(dead like you)

His nap had only lasted about fifteen minutes and when he woke up he felt like she wasn't really done talking, that they've been interrupted. The message, though, was crystal clear and he intended on finding Jaehyun and offer him his services.

__ Are you alright ?_

  


This voice was familiar, Doyoung opened his eyes and was surprised to see Jaehyun. Was he still dreaming ? Was it his beloved girlfrind that was offering him a training session ?

__ Hey, hey, can you hear me ? I'm sorry i woke you up like this but.. you were crying.._

Doyoung opened his eyes wide, and brushed his hand on his cheek, under his eyes and indeed, he cried while sleeping. And Jaehyun saw him. Oh god, Jaehyun saw him. What if he sleep talked ? What if he said something weird ?

__ Here._

Jaehyun's boyfriend was handing him a tissue and Doyoung to it after thanking him, promising himself to help them have a happy life because they both seemed to be nice people. Then he stood up and thanked them both, letting them go with their dog.

He looked at them leave and cried some more while taking away Jaehyun's memories. Jaehyun was now Jaehyun and Jaehyun only.

Doyoung's hope to see his beloved one again was gone.

Doyoung wished to die right at this moment. And he would try, if he wasn't so certain he would survive. But during the first years he tried, he tried so many times but nothing worked, he couldn't die however how hard he wished or prayed for it.

So he went home and fell down on the sofa.

He spent the next weeks crying to the new death of his love, and himself. He didn't need to be physically dead to be well, dead.

  


> **Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise**

Jaehyun had trouble sleeping for a while. Every time he closed his eyes, he couldn't dream. Everything was dark. Before, his dreams led him to far away lands, centuries back. He knew nothing about it but it seemed so real. He lived wonderful adventures, discovered cultures. But it's been three weeks since he couldn't dream at all. And he missed his dream boyfriend. It was awful to say, and the first days he forced himself not to think about it, but even in Johnny' arms he felt heartbroken. Because the life in his dreams, he wasn't spending it alone. Whatever the adventure, there was always an other man with him. A wonderful man, nice and sweet. A man who seemed to know everything about anything, as if he had the secrets of the universe in the palm his hands. And maybe, even though he didn't want to believe, maybe in some ways, Jaehyun had fallen for him.

> **No one compares to you**

Maybe he was in love with a dream, with a man that didn't exist. The first times he thought about that, it seemed absurd and he still loved Johnny the same way. And for nothing in the whole world he'd stop being in love with him. So why ? Why this lack of dream was bothering him so much ? Why when Johnny kissed him he imagined how it'd be with his dream-boyfriend ? Why couldn't he stop comparing them ? It was as if whatever Johnny did, Jaehyun was deeply convinced that dream-boyfriend could do better.

  


> **I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side**

It was an horrible feeling. He felt guilty towards Johnny, he was feeling like he cheated on him and was afraid that he confessed he would believe him to be insane, or a cheater, and would hate him.

On the other side, he was equally afraid of never getting his dreams back as if the man of his adventures didn't wait for him, as if he was dead. And Jaehyun felt grieving, but without a body to mourn over.

> **All my friends ask me why I stay strong**

Doyoung was in a pub downtown, drinking surrounded by his friends, by his friends to whom he had confided a part of his story. Well, they knew that his lover was dead years before and that he couldn't get over it. Even less today when he knew that her reincarnation wasn't far away but that, that was classified.

As Doyoung seemed especially in a bad mood these days, his friends had wanted to cheer him up and get him out of his house, help him drown his sorrow in alcohol. And it seemed like a good idea. Until he started talking about her, her, and a little more about her. His friends were good friends and let him talk as much as he needed to. When he stopped talking about her to catch his breath, one of them asked him why he stayed in thi town, why he endured all that if he felt this bad. Being drunk, Doyoung answered without thinking and told him that he did try to leave, a lots of time, and it just never worked.

> **Tell 'em when you find true love, it lives on**

To reassure them after what he just told them, he add that the one true love never quite disappeared, and that he learned to live without her since she kept being a part of him. She was in every decision, every thought, and took all the space in his heart.

For Jaehyun, on the other hand, the one true love thing was hard to handle. And that more and more so. He was missing a man he never meant while another one, whom he was in love with, was still by his side.

He didn't understand what was happening to him. Why did he remember all of those dreams and sensations when he didn't dream anymore ? And why did he think about it during the day as well now ? Once he was doing grocery shopping and he had a flash of his dream-boyfriend with a mango in his hand, explaining to him the benefits of it. He was sure he never had that dream before. Was he daydreaming now ?

As days gone by, he could less and less tell the reality and his daydreams apart. He happened to spend hours with his dream-boyfriend, talking to him, while in reality there was nobody beside him. The more they spend time together, the more he could see what he looked like. His face appeared hours by hours, days by days, weeks by weeks. And then one day, although there was only three quarters of his body he was able to see, he recognize his eyes and cheeks. He had seen him before, he was certain of it.

His gaze was vaguely familiar, he remembered seeing it, sadder, but he had seen it. On someone. Someone he went to visit. To whom he had told his problems. Which problems ? His dreams ? No it wasn't quite it. It wasn't so far from that though.

He thought about it the following days and finally remembered. He had the memories of a past life with a lover, his dream-boyfriend, and he didn't want them anymore because it might ruin his relationship with Johnny. So he.. So he.. _oh my god,_ thought Jaehyun, _I asked my past life lover to delete my past life memories I had with him ?_ He wasn't sure all this made sense, but how their faces could be the same otherwise ? And his dreams, how could they feel so real ? Even the daydreams ? Nothing made sense anyway.

When Johnny came home, he found Jaehyun laying on the sofa, hunched up, crying rivers. He hurried by his side to comfort him, to take care of him, to cheer him up but he also wanted to help him solve whatever wasn't going well.

Jaehyun didn't want to talk to him, or at least he didn't know how to find the right words without hurting him.

__ You could never hurt me Jae, you're too nice for that. So tell me, what is going on ? Because seeing you like this is what is hurting me._

__ It's complicated.. and surreal.. I really can't.._

__ maybe just try ? even if i don't understand, saying it out loud might help.._

__ I think i loved someone else in a past life and I keep getting memories of that person and I swear i've never lived that life with him, I've never lived those memories with him, but they're here, in my head, they appear like flashes and I don't ask for them I don't want them because I love you, Johnny, I swear I do. I do. I love you so much; So so much. You have to believe me Johnny, you hear me ? Jaehyun put his hands on his lover's cheeks to force him to look into his eyes, desperate. You have to believe me. Do you ?_

__ yes, i believe you love me._

__ But I.. there's this other man.. and actually i've met him twice but I didn't know it was the same man as those flashes. i went to his office once. and we saw him in the park another time, he was crying in his sleep, remember ?_

__ Oh. yeah. I remember. Nice looking dude, no wonder-_

__ no ! you don't understand, I don't love him. At that time I didn't know him, I didn't care about him. I swear. but the past life me was in love with him. And I don't know how it's possible because that would make him a thousand years old. It's absurd. Oh my god i'm going mad._

__ i don't really understand Jaehyun, but if you love another man, we can work it out, just, don't invent things, please._

__ I'm not creating things ! And I don't love him, at least i don't think i do ? but, wait, you'd let me ? if i did? we'd work it out ? you wouldn't leave me ?_

__ why would I ? As long as you're honest and you didn't act on it before talking about it with me then yeah, people can love more than one person, it makes sense it's just logical so you can love both him and me and I'd still love you the same._

After that talk, and even if Jaehyun still didn't understand everything that was happening to him, he felt way better, thanks to Johnny. And he decided to go back to that man's office to try to figures thing out.

> **That's why I stay here**

Doyoung had thought about living somewhere else often. And he did. He lived a few years in a country, then in another, and yet another. He never stayed more than 5 years at the same place, otherwise people would notice he doesn't age. Therefor, he at least changes city every five years, or country. He had live in every country at least once, and where he felt more comfortable was in his hometown. In his old house, where there were still traces of his life with his lover. He bought the house and stayed there for 5 years, then moved away for half a century, then went back for another five years and so on.

Nowadays, it was more like an habit to do so.

But when Jaehyun stepped through his office's door, he understood why he had stayed there. Hope. Whether it'd be the hope to die one day and meet her on the other side someday, or the hope to find someone else who would resemble her, the hope to bring her back to life. Jaehyun embodied hope.

__ Give me my dreams back._

__ I beg your pardon ?_

__ I was having wonderful dreams every night, until i met you in the park. I remember asking you to take away my memories, which you didn't agree to do. Later you took my dreams, but my memories are still there. It's even worse than before._

__ I.. i've never meant to.. I thought i took your memories.. I wanted to free you from all that, so that you could live a happy life. I'm sorry I made a mistake, I'll fix it._

Doyoung came closer to him, ready to dig into his mind to find the memories and take them away without making a mistake this time, but Jaehyun stopped him.

__ Wait. I.. i'd like to talk to you first. Something is happening and I think you're the only one that can help me to understand._

__ Why me ?_ Asked Doyoung, believing it wasn't supernatural related.

__ Because you're in my dreams. I don't know how, I don't understand if it makes sense but I asked you to get rid of my memories of a lover from a life i never lived, and now I keep having those memories during the day, and the lover part was still a bit blurry, i could never really see him you know.. but I.. it got worse after the dream loss. Because I started dreaming during the day, or so I thought. Turns out, the dreams I used to have and the memories are the same. Everything is just a mess. And I don't know what to do because I've started spending time with an hallucination without even noticing it, and each day it became less blurry, and everytime i saw something clearer about that lover, it looked just a little bit more like you. So tell me how the fuck can this be real ? How can you be both here, and in my memories of a past life happening a thousand years ago ?_

__ I.. I can help, but I don't think it's wise._

It broke his heart to say that, especially seeing Jaehyun so eager for the truth, on the breach of crying, looking so desperate.

__ I could.. give you memories. Without deleting yours of course. I could give you the memories of your past life, and you wouldn't have questions, you'd be both that person and yourself, which is basically the same but.. it might be weird. I don't know. Or, I could just erase what we said today and everything linked to that and you'd just walk out, go back to your boyfriend and live happily ever after._

__ I need to know. I'm going to lose my mind if I don't._

Doyoung nodded, thinking that if Jaehyun didn't like the truth, he could still take it all away in a heartbeat. So he got closer to the man he was hopelessly in love with for a millennium, laid softly his fingers on his temples, as if he was the most precious thing in the world and bit by bit, he gave him his memory back, the one of whom he used to be, of the life he used to have by his side.hhh

  


(epilogue)

Life wasn't going to be easy for Doyoung, nor for Jaehyun, and even less for Johnny.

Johnny would have to accept the fact that Jaehyun is a reincarnation of a woman from thousand years ago, while loving and helping him. He would have to accept Doyoung in their life as well. And accept the fact that Doyoung was a thousand years old.

It wasn't going to be easy for Jaehyun either, balancing between Johnny and Doyoung, trying not to think about when he'll eventually die and leave Doyoung behind.

It might be the worse for Doyoung, all things considered, because he tried for so long to forget about her, to find the strength in him to live his own life, to accept that she was dead and would never come back to him. And now he had her back. He was with Jaehyun and Johnny, loving Jaehyun and probably the both of them at some point, and he will have to say goodbye again. Be alone again.

The life together, as a trouple was dark and full of shadow, like a damocles sword above their head with a ton of concerns, but it was also a paradise, because they loved each other unconditionally and lived as happy as anyone could be, living adventures no one could ever even dream of. It was their own dark paradise.


End file.
